' do you stop, for I have
something to say." The curate was obedient, and stopped at the end of
his prescribed words, when William shouted out, "God speed them well!"

This unauthorised but excellent clerkly custom was not confined to
Windermere, but was common in several Norfolk churches, and at Hope
Church, Derbyshire, the clerk used to express the good wish after the
publication of the banns.

The old-fashioned clerk was usually much impressed by the importance of
his office. Crowhurst, the old clerk at Allington, Kent, in 1852, just
before a wedding took place, marched up to the rector, the Rev. E.B.
Heawood, and said:

"If you please, sir, the ceremony can't proceed."

"Why not? What do you mean?" asked the surprised rector.

"The marriage can't take place, sir," he answered solemnly, "'cos I've
lost my specs."

Fortunately a pupil of the rector's came forward and confessed that he
had hidden the old man's spectacles in a hole in the wall, and the
ceremony was no longer delayed.

At Bromley College the same clergyman had a curious experience, when the
clerk was called to assist at a service for the Churching of Women. As
it was very unusually performed there, he was totally at a loss what
service to find, and asked in great perturbation:

"Please, sir, be I to read the responses in the services for the Queen's
Accession?"

The same service sadly puzzled the clerk at Haddington, who was in the
employment of the then Earl of W----. One Sunday Lady W---- came to be
churched, when in response to the clergyman's prayer, "O Lord, save this
woman, Thy servant," the clerk said, "Who putteth her ladyship's
trust in Thee."

The Rev. W.H. Langhorne tells me some amusing anecdotes of old clerks.
Once he was preaching in a village church for home missions, and just as
he was reaching the pulpit he observed that the clerk was preparing to
take round the plate. He whispered to him to wait till he had finished
his sermon. "It won't make a ha'porth o' difference," was the
encouraging reply. But at the close of the sermon there was another
invitation to give additional offerings, which were not withheld.

In the old days when _Bell's Life_ was the chief sporting paper, a
hunting parson was taking the service one Sunday morning and gave out
the day of the month and the Psalm. The clerk corrected him, but the
rector again gave out the same day and was again corrected. The rector,
in order to decide the controversy, produ